


Yes I'm Changing

by goatsongs



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hair Braiding, Hair Dyeing, M/M, Shared Grief, Sort Of, Yearning, but i am mlm and this is how we yearn, mild pining, this is a bit of an awkward one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26211616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goatsongs/pseuds/goatsongs
Summary: Wilde thought for a moment.“White hair would look good on you.”
Relationships: Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	Yes I'm Changing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ratzowski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratzowski/gifts).



When Zolf docked his small ship back on the shores of Dover, stinking of sea salt, fish, rotting wood and exhaustion the very last thing he expected to see was Oscar bloody Wilde standing tall on one of the docks nearest to him. He stood tall against the wind, his long fur coat billowing in the wind against the grey, rainy sky and his hair, short and curly puffed up from the exposure to the damp air. From afar he looked almost majestic, although Zolf had no interest in such imagery. His last ‘fight’ with Poseidon had been harrowing, the sea relentless in its attempt to suck him in and draw the last breath. But gods, Poseidon could stick it for all he cared. In his months at sea, he rediscovered what it was like to sail without crawling around licking Poseidon’s boots for smooth sailing. Sailing with the wind against you, the fog surrounding you and the waves climbing high above your head on the worst nights was the sea’s real appeal. The sea was unforgiving, it left you no time to think or even breathe. It came difficult to Zolf to breathe these days.   
  
As he tied the boat securely to the docks and waved goodbye to his only shipmate, Torra, a burly woman with more scars than clear skin, Oscar Wilde walked up to him, his heels clicking mutely against the wood. He couldn’t think why Wilde would be here, looking for him, if not to ask him to return to the party. Zolf was ready to dismiss him.   
  
“Mr Smith.” Wilde said, a hint of surprise in his voice that had no place there. Zolf took the strands of matted hair which had fallen loose and pushed them back behind his shoulders. His hair had grown too long.   
  
“Wilde.” He said, finally looking up to meet the man’s eyes. What he saw almost surprised him. The last time he had seen him, Wilde had been in Paris, thrown off Earheart’s airship for having ties with the Meritocrats. Zolf had now given his services to the Harlequins for convenience, but he had no reservations for either side. Now, Wilde was looking bad, worse than he had been in Paris, when he seemed like he hadn’t slept in days. The man who was standing in front of him right now seemed like he hadn’t slept in months. His skin was pale, he had lost weight and colour in his cheeks and even his eyes. Dark circles heavy with exhaustion covered his now thin face. His short hair framed his temples in curls, and it was a strange look on him. Zolf tried to school his features to look passive and uninterested. The change was certainly more of a shock to him, although given the state of the world, he didn’t expect anyone, much less Wilde, to be coping well.    
  
Wilde’s grey eyes met his. He seemed to be searching him for something, his stare flicking up and around him as if he was evaluating him. Zolf was only suddenly aware of how he must look to him. All his Poseidon memorabilia abandoned, a small pin with the symbol of the Harlequins on his leather vest. His matted hair long and tied back carelessly, his beard tied in a plait down to his belly, his face sharper, his shoulders wider. And well, two mechanical legs which creaked slightly when he walked. Six months and various squabbles with the God of the sea himself can really change a man.    
  
Wilde breathed in and then said something that took Zolf by surprise. “It’s nice to see you.” His face gently shifted into a smile, sad but warm. Zolf balked.    
  
“What?” He asked, because what else could he say?    
The smile fell once again from Wilde’s face.    
  
“Would you like to get a drink? There’s a lot I have to tell you.”    
  
Anxiety started bubbling in Zolf’s throat. Wilde was acting too strangely and it didn’t bode well.   
  
“What is it? Tell me now.” He said roughly.   
  
Wilde brought his hand up to rub his face.    
  
“The party has gone missing. That’s not all, but please,” he asked with the slightest hint of despair in his voice, “I really need a drink.”    
  
  


* * *

  
  
That had happened a few months back, and Zolf remembered it all with a sluggish sort of clarity, as if time had slowed down for him to remember each moment, each step, each word and expression. Guilt and hope battled inside of him each day after that moment, his skin felt tighter and tighter and he wanted to scream. Having someone who shared part of his pain was quite unfamiliar. He had left the party for so many reasons, the first being that there was nothing any of them could say to make him feel better. Questions had been crowding his mind and blinding his sight and it was hard for him to have other people around him, all struggling with their own pain. He had to leave. 

But to his great surprise, Wilde lived his grief quietly, never demanding of him to speak on it or share it. It was a silent affair, their shared suffering, and though they had both known the party for such a short period of time, bonds had been made that nothing could have broken. And perhaps, because of the short time they’d all had together, the grief and the guilt were even stronger.    


When Wilde offered him a job which he could work on while still maintaining his duties with the Kraken research, Zolf had accepted. Wilde seemed changed, and they both realised one week in that they had little but each other, and they shared ties with what he couldn’t now help but call friends. 

They had both stayed in Dover for the first few weeks, before moving on to the French coast, Wilde disappearing during the day to attend business, confidential information that Zolf was not privy to. So Zolf spent his days by the sea or reading any Campbell he could get his hands on, or even rereading his old ones when he ran out. Most of all, he avoided the Temple and the Poseidon lot. It rather felt like trying to avoid your ex’s new partners. Anecdotally, he liked living his life as if he were the main character of one of his favourite romance novels. 

So one evening he and Wilde sat together by the fire in the inn they had holed up in, somewhere by the sea in Normandy, warming up and huddled close in the corner to avoid being pulled in by the light banter of some of the other patrons, who now almost regarded them as regulars.   
Zolf was pretending to read, a Campbell open on his lap as he watched the fire crackle in front of him.   
  
“So what’s with the hair?” Wilde asked, and when Zolf turned to look at him, he found him staring resolutely in the fire.    
  
“What about the hair?” Asked Zolf, wondering what Wilde meant. He hated it, but he also wasn’t bothered enough to do anything about it. And there was no Hamid around to Predistigitate him. He hadn’t asked Wilde about the whole magic situation, but he knew something was up with that, and Wilde had never offered up information about it freely, so he thought it was best to simply leave it and deal with his hair by ignoring it.    
  
“It’s long.” Said Wilde very simply.   
  
“Yours is short.” Zolf said, as if in rebuttal.    
  
Wilde brought his hand up to his hair, pulling his curls down as if hoping they would decide to grow longer all of a sudden. He turned to look at Zolf.    
  
“Do you want me to cut it?”    
  
Zolf swallowed for a moment and closed his forgotten book.    
  
“Okay,” He said, and then, because he figured he should at least try, “are you going to do it with magic?” It came out a lot more like a challenge than he had intended.    
  
Wilde looked away quickly, something resembling shame flashing quickly across his face before he managed to hide it in a frown as he stared at the burning coal in the fireplace.    
  
“I will have you know that I am a skilled hairdresser.”   
  
That seemed to be his way of shutting down the conversation Zolf had tried to sneak in. Realising his place, Zolf nodded.    
  
“Okay.” He agreed, standing up and shaking each leg out to regain feeling in his upper thighs.    
  
“Now?” Asked Wilde, standing up with him and towering about a head a half over him.    
  
“I’ve suffered this hair long enough.”   
  


* * *

  
  
So Zolf sat in front of the large brass mirror in Wilde’s room, and looked at Wilde through his reflection, standing tall behind him, scissors in hand.    
  
“How short do you wish for me to go?” Asked Wilde, holding eye contact with Zolf.   
  
“I don’t care. Just don’t make me look like an idiot.”    
  
Wilde thought for a moment.    
  
“White hair would look good on you.”    
  
Zolf looked at his reflection properly. In the navy it was custom to be well groomed, beard and hair cropped short and precise. It wasn’t obligatory, and Zolf had often felt a deep sort of guilt in following the custom, as if his doing so was yet another way of denying his past and the customs of his home. At the time he was utterly lost, so it seemed only natural that he could not find himself in his mirror’s reflection.The days he had then spent on the pirate ship, even more so because of his time in the navy, had been so freeing, and his hair and beard had grown so long that when climbing up the ship’s mast he could feel the wind whipping him round and trying to grab onto him. He didn’t look at himself for the years he had spent there, and in truth it had been one of the happiest commas in his past filled with grief and fear, that it had never mattered to him. So this was the first time in years he was finding himself really looking, trying to find a semblance with who he was in his mind’s eye. He thought with a pang of grief that white hair would make him look like his father. But he felt it deeply, in every bone in his body, and each day he had spent under the orders of a mad God drunk with power felt like it aged him a year. Maybe it was time for a change, for him to come out the other side and look it.    
  
Hell, it’s not every day that a man fights a God and survives. 

What he said next surprised even him.    
  
“Do whatever you want. I trust you, Wilde.”    
  
Wilde’s eyes widened imperceptibly, before he dropped back into a lazy smile and a quirked eyebrow. Zolf could almost see him filing away the reaction in his head.   
  
That was that. Zolf lowered his head slightly, opening his book again– “The Tamed Heart of the Captain”, it was one of his favourites, although he couldn’t help but notice the inconsistencies in terms of how exactly the captain of a ship operates. But he could live with it. The tension between the main characters was too exquisite, and the love triangle between the captain, the first mate and the pirate was so masterfully done that he was willing to overlook any errors. Wilde began.    
  
It was… pleasant. Wilde was quiet, and Zolf could feel his stilted breath as the scissors made metallic snipping sounds and locks of his blond hair would fall in a growing pile on the floor. Every now and then Zolf would look up from the novel and sneak a look at his friend, and he would find the endearing image of Wilde, his tongue held between his teeth in concentration, small curls framing his face and falling gently over his forehead. Any time he had seen Wilde before that day in Paris, he had always been absolutely impeccable, flawlessly dressed, his hair straight and combed into perfection, his green eyes bright and the tiniest bit sardonic. Seeing him now, it was like looking at him for the first time. Meeting his human side, perspiration on his brow, dark circles from lack of sleep, hair curling at the sides and sticking to his face. Zolf realised how much he liked this Wilde. He could see now, without all of the magic hiding his true colours, how shy the man was, and how much care he put into every single thing he did. Once, Zolf even noticed Wilde wiping away tears from his cheeks hastily as he had approached him sitting outside the inn one night. 

In the end, Wilde ended up cutting his beard as well, and after that he faffed around in his bags, looking for something. Every time Zolf attempted a look in the mirror his reflection looked strange and alien in the mirror, so he decided to avoid it all together.    
  
“What’re you doing?” Zolf asked. 

“Looking for something. Go back to reading your trashy novel.” Wilde replied without looking up.    
  
“Hey! It’s not trashy. It’s good literature.” Zolf protested, knowing perfectly that despite his bias, even he couldn’t deny that perhaps the plots were a little bit trashy. But absolutely well executed, thank you very much.    
  
He did so. Wilde returned with two bottles in his hands with a blue pearly substance in each. He began massaging it gently in Zolf’s hair, and though it felt cold and sharp against his scalp, the movement was so gentle and pleasant that Zolf couldn’t help but close his eyes, breathing in calmly.   
  
When Wilde moved to the front and leaned down to do the same with his beard was when Zolf began regretting it. He couldn’t really pay attention to his book any more, because all he could see were Wilde’s arms, his sleeves pulled up as he touched his beard and massaged up to his chin. He knew they both felt the awkwardness of it, but a job that had started had to be finished, so they endured it. At one terrifying point, Wilde had gone to stand in front of him, between him and the mirror, and pulled his hand up to stroke Zolf’s eyebrows, and Zolf had been so flustered that heat had risen to his cheeks in embarrassment. He hoped it wasn’t noticeable, although Wilde’s small smile told another story. When Wilde finished and washed his hands in the basin by the door, Zolf breathed in relief. 

In truth, he knew there was something more to the dynamics they had created over the last few months, and he knew this because while he could be oblivious and awkward, he was not a stupid man. Wilde had showed an enthusiastic interest in men in the past, and Zolf could still recall instances where he regarded other men with an unequivocal kind of appreciation. And to tell the truth, Zolf could well understand the interest, if not maybe quite in the way Oscar Wilde experienced it. But two men, he hated to admit it, both quite lonely, couldn’t really help but assume something about their sudden closeness. It was always stilted and careful, nothing like the boldness Zolf had come to expect from Wilde’s encounter with Bertie. But Zolf was glad of that. 

Lost in thought, he only snapped out of it when Wilde gently placed his hand on Zolf’s shoulder.    
  
“You should wash it out now.” 

Zolf stood up quickly, as if suddenly woken from a distracted stupor, and walked back to his room to wash. He couldn’t see his own hair for how short it was, cropped on the sides and back and longer on the top, but his beard, which Wilde had cut enough that it only reached his clavicles, was white as snow. He flushed again, though he was alone in his room. Since when did he care this much about what he looked like? He plunged his face into a water filled basin for more reasons than one, trying to buy himself time before having to face Wilde again.    
  
When he returned, hair mostly dry, Wilde was sitting cross legged on his bed, curiously paging through Zolf’s book.    
  
“You enjoy this?” He asked when he looked up. Then he opened his mouth and shut it again.   
  
Zolf didn’t know what to do with his hands as he just stood in the doorway, so he reached up to push his hair back, knowing perfectly well that he had no hair to push back. Typical.    
  
“Yeah, you should try actually reading it sometime. I promise I won’t sell you off to the papers if you do.”    
  
At that, Wilde laughed, letting his head tilt to the side gently as he did.    
  
He stood up again and walked to his bags again, feeling around for something. When he found it he walked up to Zolf – standing quite close, Zolf pointedly noticed – and he reached up to his beard.    
  
“May I?” He asked, hesitant.    
  
Zolf jerked a nod as he looked up at Wilde. That was a good thing, so that Wilde wouldn’t have to take his chin and lift it. That would be far too ridiculous. 

Carefully, and avoiding his eyes, Wilde parted Zolf’s beard and weaved a small plait, securing it with a hairclip, adorned to the front with an opal.    
  
Before they could even look at each other again, or acknowledge the intimacy of what they had just done, Wilde stepped back and gestured to the mirror.    
  
When Zolf looked, he blushed yet again, and his flushed skin was stark against the white. He brought his hand up to run through his hair and finally felt like the weight had fallen off all of a sudden. Not all of it of course, but some of it. He looked different. But he could recognise everything he saw. In the reflection, he could see Wilde doing his best to not look at him. Even so, they caught each other staring, and looked away again. It must have seemed all quite funny to an outsider.    
  
“How did you do it? What was that stuff?” Because the silence was too much, and getting Wilde to start talking was always the easy way out.    
  
“It’s an elixir. Whitening. I always keep products with me in case I need them. Because-” he paused for a moment “because I can’t use magic anymore.” 

Zolf turned back to look at his friend, a question in his eyes. Wilde frowned and shook his head. This was not a conversation he was ready to have. Zolf nodded once.    
  
“Thank you, Wilde.”    
  
Wilde smiled.    
  
“It was my pleasure, Zolf.” 

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally gay people culture. 
> 
> Thank you so much to Em for giving me this idea. my headcanon for Zolf is ENTIRELY taken from their drawings so please [go check them out on twitter](https://twitter.com/hobbitgeiszler) , give them a big follow and lots of love bc they deserve it! 
> 
> thank you to oscar (oscarlovesthesea) for support and beta help always <3


End file.
